Today's Google Trends: Flying Pets

Today's Google Trends: Flying Pets

If we are what we Google, then
Google Hot Trends
—an hourly rundown of search terms "that experience sudden surges in popularity"—is the Web's best cultural barometer. Here's a sampling of today's top searches. (Rankings on Hot Trends list current as of 9 a.m.)

No. 16: "Basking sharks."
A 26-foot, 5,000-pound basking shark
washed ashore
yesterday on a Long Island beach, and Googlers want to
learn more
before their next ocean dip. Luckily the basking shark is harmless and eats mostly plankton. Still, according to a 1894
New York Times
article
, the first person to describe the shark "tried to prove that this was the species of fish which swallowed Jonah ... Jonah could have lodged quite comfortably in a shark's stomach, and it would have been easier to enter that organ than to squeeze his way down the small throat of a whale."

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No. 53: "how long is the new harry potter movie?"
One hundred fifty-three minutes, according to
IMDB
. This puts the
Half-Blood Prince
at just over the series average of 150.3 minutes per Harry Potter film. Those with small children and/or child-size bladders will be glad to hear that the proprietor of the invaluable
Runpee.com
(a database that tells you the best times in a movie to take a leak) is
watching the film
right now, according to his Twitter status.

No. 97: "pet airways."
In-flight treats are the newest luxury available to America's already pampered pets.
Pet Airways
is a new pets-only airline, where dogs and cats fly coach instead of whimpering in the cargo hold. Yesterday marked Pet Airways' inaugural flight when a modified turboprop plane
took off
from Baltimore's BWI Marshall with about 40 cats and dogs bound for Chicago. Tickets cost $150 to $299 one-way, depending on the route, and a trip from New York to L.A. takes about 24 hours. "It's a niche market, no doubt. But the pet community ... they get it,"
said
co-founder Alysa Binder.

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